Factory's or handbuilts?????

Will.C

So I need help choosing some wheels. I want to spend around 500 squid. I was swaying towards hand builts simply cos of the durability and ease of getting them repaired but factory builts will be a fair bit lighter. Will be using the for all round use so racing and training until I can afford an extra set of something more aero and gucci like for racing. Hand builts will be dt swiss rims and hubs or campag record hubs. If I should go factory's any advice on which? Also why do handbuilts need to have so many spokes (28/32) in comparison to factory wheels?

Cheers

sheffsimon

Nothing wrong with factory built wheels.

I would look at Fulcrum or Campag, cant go wrong. Got some Zondas myself, great wheels, and you will save a few quid on your £500 budget.

cal_stewart

have a look at fulcrum 3s on px website down to 275 which is a mad price

Anonymous

Have a look at www.wheelsmith.co.uk

Better still, give him (Derek) a call.

He'll sort you out with some light hand built wheels at a good price!

Alternatively the Dura Ace WH7850 C24 CL are a brill factory wheel.

markos1963

Not all lightweight wheels have to have 16/20 spokes, as Nap says speak to Derek he'll build you something light and strong that will last.

CarbonCopy

PMP hub bearings are one of the smoothest out there and as mentioned above derek delivers on quality.

Will.C

Yeah wheelsmith is out of reach tbh, im using cyclescheme vouchers at my LBS (Cycles Dauphin) cos they do wheel builds and I'll be getting upgraded campag stuff and sidis. The guys said I'll be looking at about 1700g with 28 spokes. or I can shave 80 odd quid and 200g and get soem factory builds so will record hubs be that much better or?

I don't know :shock:

allezcourage

Have a look at the Easton range as I believe they are built by hand.

Anonymous

Most 'Factory' wheels are built by hand! The term handbuilt usually means custom hub/spoke/rim...

wicked

NapoleonD wrote:

Most 'Factory' wheels are built by hand! The term handbuilt usually means custom hub/spoke/rim...

I was under the impression that most factory wheels are machine built Nap, including Mavic.

Anonymous

Nope. Mavic are built by hand albeit with the assistance of computer for accuracy. Here's a shot from the factory where someone is truing a wheel -

wildmoustache

Will.C wrote:

So I need help choosing some wheels. I want to spend around 500 squid. I was swaying towards hand builts simply cos of the durability and ease of getting them repaired but factory builts will be a fair bit lighter. Will be using the for all round use so racing and training until I can afford an extra set of something more aero and gucci like for racing. Hand builts will be dt swiss rims and hubs or campag record hubs. If I should go factory's any advice on which? Also why do handbuilts need to have so many spokes (28/32) in comparison to factory wheels?

Cheers

You are right in implying that choice is really limited in the low spoke count "handbuilt" world unless you want to shell out big bucks.

If you want one pair of wheels to last for ages in all conditions and then to replace the rim when it wears out go handbuilt. Otherwise go factory built. In generally good riding conditions decent rims will last a long time. I have shamal ultras with c.40k kms on them and still not far off new condition.

Ease of repair is a bit of red-herring unless you're very very hard on your equipment (perhaps because you weigh 95kg or something). The best factory built wheels need very little maintenance indeed.

phil s

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wicked

wildmoustache wrote:

Will.C wrote:

So I need help choosing some wheels. I want to spend around 500 squid. I was swaying towards hand builts simply cos of the durability and ease of getting them repaired but factory builts will be a fair bit lighter. Will be using the for all round use so racing and training until I can afford an extra set of something more aero and gucci like for racing. Hand builts will be dt swiss rims and hubs or campag record hubs. If I should go factory's any advice on which? Also why do handbuilts need to have so many spokes (28/32) in comparison to factory wheels?

Cheers

You are right in implying that choice is really limited in the low spoke count "handbuilt" world unless you want to shell out big bucks.

If you want one pair of wheels to last for ages in all conditions and then to replace the rim when it wears out go handbuilt. Otherwise go factory built. In generally good riding conditions decent rims will last a long time. I have shamal ultras with c.40k kms on them and still not far off new condition.

Ease of repair is a bit of red-herring unless you're very very hard on your equipment (perhaps because you weigh 95kg or something). The best factory built wheels need very little maintenance indeed.

Hmmm. Had a pair of Eastons, problems with freewheel and 5 broken spokes in 500 miles! The wheel builder I took em to generally thought them to be utter crap. Got a pair of Dura-ace CL's, glad to see the back of them they sounded like a tractor! Yes maintenance free.
You had better hope so otherwise with the proprietry spokes, hubs and rims that are only available at midnight on a leap year there are problems ahead! Try £250 for a DA CL rim for size?
For the record all my problems with factory dross must be down to my vast 65kg!

wildmoustache

wicked wrote:

wildmoustache wrote:

Will.C wrote:

So I need help choosing some wheels. I want to spend around 500 squid. I was swaying towards hand builts simply cos of the durability and ease of getting them repaired but factory builts will be a fair bit lighter. Will be using the for all round use so racing and training until I can afford an extra set of something more aero and gucci like for racing. Hand builts will be dt swiss rims and hubs or campag record hubs. If I should go factory's any advice on which? Also why do handbuilts need to have so many spokes (28/32) in comparison to factory wheels?

Cheers

You are right in implying that choice is really limited in the low spoke count "handbuilt" world unless you want to shell out big bucks.

If you want one pair of wheels to last for ages in all conditions and then to replace the rim when it wears out go handbuilt. Otherwise go factory built. In generally good riding conditions decent rims will last a long time. I have shamal ultras with c.40k kms on them and still not far off new condition.

Ease of repair is a bit of red-herring unless you're very very hard on your equipment (perhaps because you weigh 95kg or something). The best factory built wheels need very little maintenance indeed.

Hmmm. Had a pair of Eastons, problems with freewheel and 5 broken spokes in 500 miles! The wheel builder I took em to generally thought them to be utter crap. Got a pair of Dura-ace CL's, glad to see the back of them they sounded like a tractor! Yes maintenance free.
You had better hope so otherwise with the proprietry spokes, hubs and rims that are only available at midnight on a leap year there are problems ahead! Try £250 for a DA CL rim for size?
For the record all my problems with factory dross must be down to my vast 65kg!

Maybe the gods are trying to tell you something?

FWIW I would not put Eastons among the best. Pleased you've got on with the DAs.

CarbonCopy

NapD hows your mavic sl wheels in comparison to the shimano cl`s you once had?

uphillbothways

Spend your £500 on a pair of Planet X Carbon 50s or similar and train on whatever rubbish you've got until you can find a couple of hundred for some proper hand built training wheels - Mavic Open Pro on 105 hubs, 32 spokes, double butted, 3 cross.

That way you'll end up with a properly fast pair of racing wheels and a pair of properly solid training wheels. Most mid-priced factory wheels are neither fish nor fowl - the rims are too shallow to offer serious aerodynamic gains, but they have few enough spokes to be worrisomely fragile.

Anonymous

CarbonCopy wrote:

NapD hows your mavic sl wheels in comparison to the shimano cl`s you once had?

I haven't got any.

FWIW the Dura Ace wheels were fantastic, no problems at all smooth and silent, pretty stiff but the ride was amazing.

Will.C

I like the idea of going for some aero planet x's but again im using cycle vouchers so I have to buy everything in one place and cos Im going for upgraded campag stuff too planet x don't seem to stock any campag stuff. I also like the look of the DA's napoleanD mentioned but a tad over my wheel budget plus I'd have to buy a campag freehub which would be an extra 50 odd squid. So it may be a toss up between some handbuilts DT Swiss RR 415 rims on record hubs or come campag zonda clicnchers, any ideas how these would fair against each other? Or DT swiss 240 hubs with a lower spoke count?

Anonymous

DT 240 Hubs are great, not the lightest but that doesn't matter. If you could get some of them with DT 1.2 rims and DT Aerolite spokes they'd be great. Reasonably aero, stiff, pretty light, very strong and easily repairable.

giant_man

Ksyrium SLs are very good wheels, had mine for over 7 years and kept in true pretty damn well, there's nothing wrong with factory wheels, I've always had them but for me handbuilts will be my next pair of wheels.

Ambrosio Excellight rims with PMP hubs and mixture of Lasers and ACI spokes. Fairly light, pretty bombproof, especially for this time of year and reasonably priced.

Velonutter

I have campag and fulcrums on all my bikes, as does my daughter and future son-in-law, indestructible, the Zondas, Euros, Shamals or just brilliant.